The Bookshelf: March
April 01, 2019
For 2019, I’m trying something different. At the beginning of each month (or thereabouts), I’m sharing the books I read the previous month.
Editors Note: Unplanned, March’s reading made it “focus month”. Digital Minimalism pairs nicely with Atomic Habits.
The Expanse: Babylon’s Ashes
I mentioned last month that I was having trouble getting into this installment of The Expanse. In the end, this never got my attention like previous books in the series. I’ll try to pick it up again later this year.
Atomic Habits
As it says on the tin, Atomic Habits is all about creating habits that one can stick to. We all have some habit that we want to start but aren’t stick to (working out, self-care, cleaning, something professional related, etc.)
Atomic Habits covers how to make tiny, sustainable improvements (atomic) for the habits/goals in life that you want to achieve. A good read but some topics were obvious and/or repetitive
My takeaways:
- Many people think they lack motivation, what they lack is implementation. Set yourself up for success what starting a new habit by creating implementation intentions. For example, I will (behavior) at (time) in (location).
- Start a habit at the start of something. A new week, a new month, a new job, etc.
- Make the time and location so obvious you can’t say no. For instance, if you want to start a reading habit have a chair where you read in at a certain time.
Digital Minimalism
In his follow-up to Deep Work, Cal Newport lays out his vision for a digital unclutter to improve our relationship with technology.
Cal starts with a hook about the gamification of social networks and technology in general. He makes the case that Facebook and the like are akin to tobacco companies stealing our attention. Newport quotes Bill Maher:
Philip Morris just wanted your lungs … The App Store wants your soul.
Newport goes on to define Digital Minimalism as:
A philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support things you value, then happily miss out on everything else.
The first half of the book is arguing for his vision of Digital Minimalism. The second half goes into tactics for a digital detox. Well worth a read.